Morocco to stop marketing regular gasoline

Regular gasoline will no longer be marketed in Morocco as of July 1, announced a communique of the Ministry of energy and mines.

Regular gasoline, whose octane number is barely 87%, will be replaced by environmentally-friendly premium lead-free gasoline, whose octane number is 95%, says the communiqué.

It went on to say that "the consumption of regular gasoline has plummeted by 38% between 2001 and 2004, dropping from 80,000 tons to 50,000 tons" because of the growing use of premium gas vehicles.

Due to the upsurge in oil prices internationally, the government had to resort, in May 2005 and August 2004, to increasing the prices of oil products to ward off a possible deficit of about MAD 6.3b (USD 723m) in 2005.

The recent increase brought the prices to MAD 9.85/litre for gas (USD 1.12), and MAD 6.46/litre for diesel (USD 0.73).